<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>At Will by Anonymous</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375994">At Will</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, evolutionary biology?, i have not proofread this we are not that clever in this house</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:55:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,004</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375994</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma has a question for Nate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>At Will</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ejunkiet/gifts">Ejunkiet</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you believe,” Emma says, glancing at him from the driver’s side, with a slowness that seeps into him, the lift at the corner of her mouth setting him alight so that he is glowing in the passenger seat, a pale golden moon sat beside her, “In fate? That something — someone, even — orchestrates our lives?”</p><p>Nate draws the edge of his thumb beneath his bottom lip, a practised human gesture that he will eventually force to become habit. A century hasn’t allowed it enough time to sink in, but he is persistent. “I have a question.”</p><p>“Of course.” </p><p>The way the lights of the highway move across her outstretched arm, fingers curled into the steering wheel, shimmering through the snow-streaked windows — touching her would be like swimming through a sea of molten metal; her light would cling to him. There’s something sharp caught in the back of his throat as he looks at her, making him look away again, and she is oblivious to the tides of his attention.</p><p>The road is mostly empty. Unoccupied by traffic and winding slightly, edged by cedar trees tipped with glittering white when her headlights cross them. The chill slips in through the windows, settling beneath his collar. It’s vaguely unnerving. </p><p>He bites down the real question. ‘<i>Does it matter what I believe?</i>’ </p><p>“When you say, ‘orchestrates our lives’, do you mean that they have the ability to control every aspect of them and we make no choices of our own? Or merely that there is some pre-determined path for us? Is it — a passive control, or an active one?”</p><p>Emma’s laugh is soft, and leaves him dizzied. It’s thrilling to be in such close proximity to her, inhaling when she does, fingers brushing her sleeve, sloping towards her, clinging to her. As though Nate was some lonely celestial object who had the good fortune of straying, hurtling, really, into her orbit and was trapped there. Her heart and the road makes the same sound, a steady beat that could lull him to sleep if he closed his eyes.</p><p>“I should have known,” she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially, one of her brows arched. “You are impossible.”</p><p>A moment passes, as she considers his question, and he swallows, the sound of it echoing in the emptiness. The snow is growing heavier, caught in the beams of the hatchback’s headlights, settling on the windshield. The end of the detective’s nose turns a soft pink, skin a velvet like peony petals between two of his fingers, in the cold. He shivers and trembles as imperceptibly as he can manage through the winter, still too humid-blooded even considering — what he is now — what he has been for centuries now — with his tanned skin and warm eyes.</p><p>“What about — ‘do you believe anything has any kind of control over us?’”</p><p>Nate touches his lip again, his eyes finding hers in the rearview mirror. The answer is, ’<i>Do you?</i>’</p><p>“I believe,” a shuddered exhale, snow casting shadows under the highway lights, “That there are things in our universe I could not possibly understand, and I cannot possibly argue against the way someone else tries to rationalise them.”</p><p>There’s a strand of blonde hair grazing her cheek as she looks from the road to his mouth. </p><p>He hears her fingers tighten around the steering wheel, but does not see them before she answers him with another question. </p><p>“Such a diplomat. How do <i>you</i> rationalise them?” </p><p>Emma’s laugh is like silk, sliding through his fingers. Snow through the spaces between his knuckles. An ephemeral heat, a flush, a firestart. Not unlike the feeling of her knee bumping against his, her leg burning him through his coat, or her hand tucked inside of his, the back of it brushing velveteen against his lips, the taste of her bare skin lingering on his tongue. </p><p>Even in the cold and the solitude and the silence, she warms him.  </p><p>“What are we trying to rationalise, habibti?”</p><p>Her gaze flickers back to him. “You were —” Her hesitation tastes bitter in the back of his throat; he has a suspicion that, whatever she is going to say, she wants to protect him from. “You were alive when Darwin was writing ‘On the Origin of Species’. And when Huxley published ‘Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature’. When the Leakeys discovered hundreds of fossils in Olduvai Gorge and Lake Turkana, and they began to call Africa the ‘cradle of humanity’. When Dubois discovered the remains of <i>Homo erectus</i> in Java. When Johanson found ‘Lucy’ in Ethiopia.”</p><p>Nate lets his shoulders fall. “I was.”</p><p>“Have you ever wondered why we evolved from primates, and not something else — birds. Our shoulder blades could sustain the growth of wing-like structures. It’s the rest of us that could not. Too much muscle. Our bones are too heavy. We’re too tall. We would need wings larger than our bodies, and then, they would be too heavy for us to fly with. But — could we have had wings, once?”</p><p>The ‘we’ — as though they are both human — echoes in his ears.  </p><p>“I can’t say I have, darling. Is that what you want to explain? That you are not a bird?”</p><p>His smile is gentle and bitter. He sees a glimpse of it in her mirror. The car is accelerating. He’s starting to recognise these roads again; they’re close to the edge of town, the gleaming lights of the city far behind them now. It’s getting darker still. He has a suspicion that, if he were to get out of the car, and look up, the sky would be blanketed by stars, and she would know the names of all of them.</p><p>The minute is claustrophobic and intimidating, but he does not want to be anywhere else.</p><p>“I wonder,” Emma says, dreamily, giving him a final glance, smiling back at him in a way that makes guilt tug the corners of his mouth back upwards, “If fate is not the most important things we experience, but the smallest ones.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Emma Kingston is EJ’s. Tried to write a bit about science, given our birthday girl. </p><p>Happy birthday, EJ 💕</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>